Some of his amazing feats of strength include: at age 41 proving it possible to escape from Alcatraz by swimming to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco while wearing handcuffs; at 45, completing a thousand push-ups and a thousand chin-ups in an hour and twenty-two minutes with blisters under his calluses; at sixty, swimming from Alcatraz to Fisherman's Wharf handcuffed, shackled and towing a thousand-pound boat, and at seventy, battling currents while handcuffed and shackled, towing seventy boats holding seventy people for a mile and a half across Long Beach Harbor.

Appeared on "You Asked for It" (1950), where he performed 1,033 push-ups in 23 minutes.

His show, "The Jack LaLanne Show" (1951) debuted in 1951 and was the first ever television exercise program. It ran until 1985, in spite of the fact that critics said the show would be off the air in six weeks.

For his 70th birthday, he pulled 70 boats across the Long Beach, California harbor with one person in each of them, swimming while shackled and handcuffed.

Started his own gym in 1936, which included a health food store and a juice bar.

Son, Jon LaLanne (born 1961), has his own pool maintenance company, works caring for stars' pools.